Scientific Method —

Pics, because it really is happening on Mars

Some of our favorite shots from the rover's first week on the Red Planet.

This feels a bit like releasing a greatest hits album after one chart-topping single, but we're going to show you some of our favorite images from the landing and activation of the Curiosity rover on Mars. Although Curiosity is on track to be sending back data for years, its arrival and first few days on the Red Planet have been nothing short of spectacular, with a complicated landing plan going off without a hitch, and data starting to trickle in from over a dozen different cameras.

You can see this in the first picture, which takes advantage of the lander's downward-facing camera during its plunge through Mars' thin atmosphere. The camera started capturing data as soon as there was light, which meant the first picture was snapped as the heat shield popped off. As a result, the rover's first view of its new home came complete with a heat shield plunging ahead of it, having already done the hard work of handling the heat of a high-speed entry into the thin Martian atmosphere.

Enlarge/ The heat shield, its job complete, is set loose into the Martian atmosphere.

Currently, Mars is the best monitored planet outside of our own, which means that there is hardware in orbit that can help relay information from Curiosity back to Earth. But it also meant that NASA was able to direct the HIRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter towards the area where Curiosity was scheduled to touch down. It worked spectacularly, capturing this image of the parachute that slowed the hardware down to a manageable speed.

Curiosity's parachute slows it down as it plunges towards the surface of Mars.

Later, HIRISE would photograph the area where it landed. NASA staff were able to identify most of the parts that were thrown free of the rover during its descent, including the parachute and heat shield, as well as the sky crane that dropped it gently to Mars' surface.

Enlarge/ NASA's scattered hardware across a wide swath of the floor of Gale crater.

Curiosity first activated several black-and-white cameras once it was on the ground, which gave us our first glimpse of the surroundings. Although it landed on smooth ground, that site is the floor of a large impact crater that includes a huge central peak. Some of the nearby topography can be seen in this photo, framed by the rover's hardware and featuring its shadow.

Enlarge/ Good morning, Mars. Part self-portrait, part landscape, this photo captures Curiosity's shadow and the features of Gale crater beyond.

NASA sent the mast camera for a 360-degree spin and, with the low-resolution thumbnails having been successfully transmitted to Earth, they've been stitched together to form a full 360° panorama of the Gale crater.

Enlarge/ A full sweep by Curiosity's mast camera captures its surroundings.

The rover's mission is slated to run at least two years, and estimates are that its radioactive power source could keep it running for at least a decade (and it'll work straight through the Martian winter). Expect many more mind-boggling photos to come.

There are two images that are pieced together as panoramas. One is black and white, the other is color, but they are otherwise (I believe) the same images. So why does it look like the rover is redacted in the color one?

I have a love-hate relationship with space exploration and how much we spend on it, but seeing actual colour photos of Mars taken on Mars is a really odd and amazing experience that makes it hard to argue against NASA. Mars (other planets in general) seemed so abstract to me before, but there's a photo taken from the surface. It's a real place. Damn.

What I appreciate is that NASA seems to get it... pictures of landscapes are one thing, but good vacation shots should include pictures of the tourist once in a while to really say "been there, done that."

Worth pondering is that we've got probably more understanding of the geography(not geology) on mars thanks to MRO et al than we had of most of Earth for most of human history.

Also. it's hard to tell because of possible photographic effects, but it doesn't look like that central peak of the crater is all that far off.

There are two images that are pieced together as panoramas. One is black and white, the other is color, but they are otherwise (I believe) the same images. So why does it look like the rover is redacted in the color one?

/tinfoil hat ;-)

Because a tech at the studio in Burbank was inadvertently in the shot... ;-)

I have a love-hate relationship with space exploration and how much we spend on it, but seeing actual colour photos of Mars taken on Mars is a really odd and amazing experience that makes it hard to argue against NASA. Mars (other planets in general) seemed so abstract to me before, but there's a photo taken from the surface. It's a real place. Damn.

There are two images that are pieced together as panoramas. One is black and white, the other is color, but they are otherwise (I believe) the same images. So why does it look like the rover is redacted in the color one?

/tinfoil hat ;-)

Assuming that's 1 part joke, 1 part serious question:

Bandwidth. Fewer bits per pixel for greyscale and all that.

Usually with such images, B/W shot is assembled from fewer, larger shots. The color image is assembled from more, smaller images and the "boring parts" (the ones that were 100% the rover itself) weren't sent.

I have to agree that the color photos just make the whole concept of Mars exploration more solid, more real.

The idea that this thing is snapping photos from the surface and beaming them millions of miles back in our direction is just an amazing testament, not only to how far we've come as a civilization, but also how far we still have to go.

I have a love-hate relationship with space exploration and how much we spend on it, but seeing actual colour photos of Mars taken on Mars is a really odd and amazing experience that makes it hard to argue against NASA. Mars (other planets in general) seemed so abstract to me before, but there's a photo taken from the surface. It's a real place. Damn.

I'll take 4 rovers at a total cost, including launch and operation, of $2.4 billion each over a single new aircraft carrier at a cost of over $9 billion any day of the week. What we spend on space exploration is embarrassingly small and people who don't like "how much" we spend on space exploration (and science in general) should be ashamed of themselves.

Let's go GREEN! And by green I mean money! Forget the hungry, we want the future generations who we rob/borrow from to move onto other planets, at any cost and as soon as possible. We'll dump garbage on other planets, bring bacteria with it, and then claim we found life on Mars!

I have a love-hate relationship with space exploration and how much we spend on it, but seeing actual colour photos of Mars taken on Mars is a really odd and amazing experience that makes it hard to argue against NASA. Mars (other planets in general) seemed so abstract to me before, but there's a photo taken from the surface. It's a real place. Damn.

I'll take 4 rovers at a total cost, including launch and operation, of $2.4 billion each over a single new aircraft carrier at a cost of over $9 billion any day of the week. What we spend on space exploration is embarrassingly small and people who don't like "how much" we spend on space exploration (and science in general) should be ashamed of themselves.

You seem to making the assumption that I'm down for the $9billion on the carrier which isn't even remotely true. And I'll pass on being ashamed, thanks.

Let's go GREEN! And by green I mean money! Forget the hungry, we want the future generations who we rob/borrow from to move onto other planets, at any cost and as soon as possible. We'll dump garbage on other planets, bring bacteria with it, and then claim we found life on Mars!

I agree... It's far more useful to spend my HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS on a bon-bon eating, Jerry Springer watching inner-city mother of 13 so she can have more children. It's FAR MORE USEFUL to spend my hard earned tax dollars on oil and tobacco subsidies than broadening the mind of future generations. Far more useful spending my hard earned tax dollars on studies to determine how parakeets mate in loud environments. Far better use of all that TAXPAYER CASH to pay corrupt elected officials to overlook scandals, theft, graft, and abuse (looking at you, DHS & TSA) than to educate our children.

Yeah, more tax dollars to subsidize markets that can't stand on their own (as well as citizens that can't stand on their own). Some of you people baffle me on a daily basis.

Very cool. Reminiscient of a lot of areas out here in Arizona, although even we have more vegetation than that. I hope they show a few good pics of the sky too. It looks bluish... I just want one where I can see above the low horizon, where dust might change the color more than it would higher up.

I'm all for throwing handfuls of cash at the space program rather than the small change it currently uses in comparison to other govt program budgets. Money in government is seemingly NEVER handled efficiently - we might as well have pics from another planet to show for it, instead of the never completed road a few blocks away.

Also, I'd gladly do some service hours picking up the trash around mars in my bright orange space suit if someone will give me a lift there.

I have a love-hate relationship with space exploration and how much we spend on it, but seeing actual colour photos of Mars taken on Mars is a really odd and amazing experience that makes it hard to argue against NASA. Mars (other planets in general) seemed so abstract to me before, but there's a photo taken from the surface. It's a real place. Damn.

I'll take 4 rovers at a total cost, including launch and operation, of $2.4 billion each over a single new aircraft carrier at a cost of over $9 billion any day of the week. What we spend on space exploration is embarrassingly small and people who don't like "how much" we spend on space exploration (and science in general) should be ashamed of themselves.

You seem to making the assumption that I'm down for the $9billion on the carrier which isn't even remotely true. And I'll pass on being ashamed, thanks.

Don't worry about the self-righteous science hand-wringers on these boards. They live in an either/or world where your either for "science," or your for the DoD. What they usually fail to see is that the DoD basically is a science installation, just not in their preferred domain(s).

Is NASA underfunded? Yes, I believe it is. Is the DoD over funded? Probably. But don't pretend that all that money going to the DoD does nothing for the public. Hell, I couldn't even be typing this response if not for the DoD!

There are two images that are pieced together as panoramas. One is black and white, the other is color, but they are otherwise (I believe) the same images. So why does it look like the rover is redacted in the color one?

/tinfoil hat ;-)

Assuming that's 1 part joke, 1 part serious question:

Bandwidth. Fewer bits per pixel for greyscale and all that.

Usually with such images, B/W shot is assembled from fewer, larger shots. The color image is assembled from more, smaller images and the "boring parts" (the ones that were 100% the rover itself) weren't sent.

Bandwidth is a major concern. Curiosity currently has 250mb/day (31MB/day); that's roughly the equivalent of 90 minutes of dial-up internet; or a few seconds of broadband. Nasa has to be very selective about what they send home.